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Friday October 5, 2007






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Editorial: Praise for USA PATRIOT Act rulings



October 5, 2007
By Editorial Board

"The USA PATRIOT Act was written in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, in an attempt to fight terror and increase foreign intelligence accessibility for law enforcement agencies. --The judges who have ruled against the USA PATRIOT Act over the past three years should be praised, as should the Congressmen and Senators who have written the under-publicized bills condemning or repealing parts of the act. These actions, however, are only stepping stones to a final and necessary achievement. The government as a whole, including the executive branch, must decide against the underlying tenants of the USA PATRIOT Act. Never should absolute power be given to any part of the government. The liberties of American citizens should never be sacrificed, regardless of how well-intentioned the rationale"
Ted Rudow III,MA
The debate over how terrorist suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation. The U.S. Senate got up in arms over the "torture" aspect of these prisons like Guantanamo Bay and others, and passed a bill to try and stop it—despite disagreements with the vice president and others in the administration over "What is torture" and how far they can legally go in mistreating and abusing people—and the president finally signed it, but said he had the power to ignore it in the interest of national security!
Well, Bush is ignoring other laws, so I guess he figures one more doesn't make much difference. He's also authorized the NSA, the National Security Agency, to spy on Americans despite laws against it, and the FBI is getting into surveillance of anti-war groups, civil rights workers, and such dangerous folks as Quakers, of all things—anyone who exercises their right of free speech to oppose his government's policies.
Ted Rudow III,MA